Gaunt laughed bitterly.
“Do you see the turkey-cock’s welcome, Cilla? All the male folk of Garth seem out of humour with me somehow.”
It was another sign of the new days which Reuben had ushered into Garth—one of those signs which are no bigger than a cloud the size of a man’s hand—that Priscilla of the Good Intent did not resent the shortened name which few but her father had been privileged to use till now.
“You are out of heart with life,” she said, scattering the last of the food abroad and turning to meet his glance again.
“Nay, life’s out of heart with me, Cilla. They seem to think I’m lying, these Garth folk, when I tell them I’d be glad to be here again among the old home-fields, if only they would let me.”
The man was sincere. It was a dangerous gift of his, this habit of speaking what was truth for the moment, though it had no quality of strength and purpose behind it.
It was a dangerous gift of his, too, that women were compelled, when near him, to feel an odd, protective instinct. Peggy Mathewson had felt the motherhood of life rise up and cloud her judgment as she walked with Reuben a week ago through the sunlit fields; and now Priscilla of the Good Intent felt pity’s strength awake.
“’Tis a bad habit,” she said, moving a little closer to him, “this being out of heart with life, Reuben”—forgetting that she had vowed to call him Mr. Gaunt perpetually. “There’s enough and to spare of gladness, and we must just search for it when times fare ill. Shame on you, to go whimpering like a child when spring is flooding all the countryside!”
She was not thinking for the moment of those fairy seas and lands which Gaunt had painted for her. In this quiet field, with the turkeys and the fowls about her, she was answering the prime instinct of all human life—to better a sad man’s outlook on the world by spoken word, and, if need were, by that touch of hand on hand which she had disdained.
“Cilla,” said Gaunt, his face a man’s at last, because for his little moment he had gripped hold of love. “Cilla, you’re the sunlight and the joy of life to me. Have you never thought of wedlock?”